Eric Weaver, writing on his blog Ad-Verse has crafted, hands down, the best article on why direct marketers are still stuck in the dark ages and why the practice is, as Weaver calls it, "A science of stupidities." While we've long known many marketers are, in fact, still holding signs up and grunting incessantly in front of cave men's doorways, never before have we read such a concise diatribe against the practice of direct marketing.

Andrew Teman informs us about a direct mail piece his boss had received consisting of a white 3" x 3" x 3" box which contained a fortune cookie that read, "whatsmyfortune.com." The link leads to a site containing a video portraying a frustrated ISP IT manager experiencing the usual technology related headaches. At the end of the video, he is seen opening his own white box with his own fortune cookie inside. The viewer is then pushed to a series of pages outlining the services CISP, an outsource ISP provider, can offer. After three pages, the visitor is taken to a form page where more information can be requested. It's very pointed and succinct in it's message delivery. Teman reports, though, a problem. His company is not an ISP. Perhaps CISP should check the quality of the mailing list it used for this promotion.